How did Chechnya’s culture of terror come to Boston?

For the last week, most of the world has been playing a lurid guessing game in regard to the Boston bombings. Arabs? White supremacists? A loner nut?

But Chechens? Didn’t see that coming — especially Chechens who apparently haven’t lived in the North Caucasus for many years.

Yet the Boston bombings wouldn’t be the first time that radicals who trace their ancestry and grievances to that region have taken up arms against the United States. As CIA veteran Gary Schroen wrote in his 2005 book, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan, Chechens were among the most bloodthirsty enemies that U.S. special forces and allied troops faced in their campaign to oust the Taliban from power in the months after 9’11.

Schroen describes one battle this way: “‘Chechnya! Chechnya!’ The cry was picked up by the others. ‘Chechnya!’ A wave of panic and fear … swept through the line of [Afghan] men [fighting alongside U.S. special forces and CIA officers] on the hilltop … As if on signal, the entire group of 60 men turned and began to run from their positions. Craig was shouting for them to stop, and grabbed at one man near him. But the man jerked free, staggered, and turned to join his comrades in a headlong run down the backside of the hill.”

The Afghans who fought alongside the Americans 12 years ago were tough, battle-hardened men inhabiting one of the most violent places on the planet. But they still were absolutely terrified by Chechen jihadis, who were regarded as pitiless and fanatical — even by the standards of Islamist terrorism. After watching his entire force of five dozen men run shrieking from a trio of Chechens jogging nonchalantly toward their camp, Schroen observed: “Those are three of the bravest men I’ve ever seen, or they’re [crazy]. Either way, I don’t want to stay around and meet them.” He ends up calling in a B-52, which obliterates the Chechens with a 2,000-pound bomb, even as they taunted the American-led force with shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” (combined, bizarrely, with crotch-grabbing and obscene hip gyrations).

It is not just on proper battlefields where Chechen jihadis have attained a reputation for viciousness: Two of the most morally horrific jihadi attacks against civilians the world ever has witnessed were committed in this formerly obscure North Caucasus neighbourhood. In 1995, Chechen Islamists attacked a hospital in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk and took 2,000 hostages — including women and their newborn infants. (More than 100 hostages died.) A decade later, Chechen and Ingush gunmen attacked a school in the town of Beslan and took over 1,000 hostages — including 777 children. Almost 400 people died.

This is terrorism of the most hideous form: Even al-Qaeda does not make a practice of targeting elementary schools and maternity awards. This week’s killing of three Marathon-watchers in Boston, including an eight-year-old boy, was seen in the West as an epic act of savagery. But by the standards of Chechen terrorists, it was standard fare.